MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
To Colombia now, where rescue workers are still searching for survivors after Monday's 7.4-magnitude earthquake in the western part of the country. More than 180 people have been killed, and hundreds more are missing. This disaster is presenting a major challenge for Colombia's new president, who was sworn in just three days before the quake. Reporter John Otis is in Cali, one of the hardest-hit cities. He's with us now. John, good morning.
JOHN OTIS, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: I understand that you've been on the ground in Cali since last night. What have you seen?
OTIS: Well, Cali is Colombia's third-largest city. And most of it was spared, so at first, everything can seem quite normal. There are traffic jams. Music blares from bars and restaurants, and the new school year is just starting up. But when I reached the south side of the city, some areas were just apocalyptic. Hotels and dance clubs have collapsed. Cali's largest public hospital is now a heap of rubble. The city's mayor says that a total of 56 buildings have been destroyed. At one point, I came across a pair of five-story apartments that had been absolutely flattened. Henry Granja (ph), who lives a few blocks away, happened to be right outside the buildings when the earthquake struck. Let's listen.
HENRY GRANJA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: So he's saying, "suddenly, the buildings just collapsed. I saw them fall down. My lifetime neighbors and friends were inside, but there was so much dust and debris that I didn't even know where to start looking for them.
MARTIN: How are the search-and-rescue operations going? I mean, are they finding any survivors?
OTIS: Yeah. That's the one heartening thing in all this. So many rescue workers and volunteers are swarming over the disaster sites that they look like ants on an anthill. They use sledgehammers and rebar cutters, but they also use sensitive listening devices to detect survivors. And when they hear something, they order everyone to be quiet.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED RESCUE WORKER #1: (Speaking Spanish).
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED RESCUE WORKER #2: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: And then they use a bullhorn to ask possible survivors to make some kind of sound to help locate them. And sometimes this works. Just a few hours before I got here, the search teams rescued a 31-year-old woman, which set off wild celebrations.
(CHEERING)
MARTIN: So, John, what about the official government response? What's that been like?
OTIS: Colombia's president, Abelardo de la Espriella, took the oath of office just last week, so it's been a very rough beginning. He has declared a state of emergency and has won praise for working closely with the mayors of the hardest-hit cities. And the immediate result is that Colombians are rallying around the right-wing president. And this is key for de la Espriella because he really doesn't have much of a mandate. He won the June presidential election by less than a percentage point.
So going forward, this disaster's going to be a real test of de la Espriella's capacity to govern, something he's never done before. He's a former criminal defense attorney and a businessman who's never before held elective office. Also, he's trying to manage a huge fiscal deficit. So it's really unclear how much aid his government is going to be able to provide to rebuild Cali and the many other towns and cities across Colombia that were damaged by this earthquake.
MARTIN: That is John Otis. He's reporting from Cali, Colombia. John, thank you.
OTIS: Thanks.
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